Knox County Schools is releasing a new app to monitor students’ online activity

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) – More than a month has passed since then dozens of school threats closed several schools in East Tennessee, leading to arrests across the region.

As Knox County leaders urged parents to talk to their children to prevent further threats, they also worked on ways to continue to be proactive.

The Qustodio app launched for Knox County Schools on Friday. This is an application that parents can use to monitor their children’s online activity outside school hours.

“Parents are used to having tools on their own device, but the situation is a little more complicated if it’s a school device managed by, for example, Google,” said Freddie Cox, chief technology officer at KCS.

This app is intended to help parents find out how much time their child is spending on a school tablet screen, and can also give families an idea of what their child is being used for after school hours.

With Qustodio, you can see how many minutes and hours a student is using their tablet to do homework and use academic websites, while also keeping tabs on any other non-school-related searches.

“It opens a dialogue between the student and the parent. Parent and school. “For everyone to be aware of what our children are doing and learning while they are at home,” Cox said.

The app also allows parents to pause the internet connection on tablets after school, giving families the ability to choose how much screen time a student should have.

For more information and a link to register for the application, click this link.